For too long this season Arsenal haven’t been fun to watch. Whether tactical or not deliberate, our football hasn’t hit the heights of our last campaign. Even when top on Xmas day you sensed the Gunners would have to play a lot better if they wanted to be Champions.
Some Gooners argue that this is our young squad now maturing. That they now have the ability to win games without playing well, and that they are timing their peak form for the run in. That would be in contrast to last year where too much emotion was exerted by April and May, leading players to physically and mentally tire.
This may have been our manager trying to be too clever and over complicating our system. The only positive to Partey’s injury issues is that it stopped Arteta’s experiment of having both full backs time when to become midfielders.
Rice as a sole DM hasn’t worked like the Spaniard thought with Havertz not an upgrade on Xhaka. Players have been given extensions to contracts when they don’t deserve to be at the club.
West Ham knew they were well beaten when a triple sub of Elneny, Reiss Nelson and Eddie Nketiah was made. Debate remains if not having a prolific striker will cost us from silverware.
Yet on Sunday it all came together, the pieces all seemed to fit, and suddenly we are playing well enough to catch the two above us.
Mentality can we handle the pressure of squeaky bum time? We have yet to prove that.
Yet make no mistake, play how we did at the London Stadium in our final 14 fixtures and we can win the League.
Sir Alex Fergurson used to only care about Man United being in the equation this time of year. If so, he then trusted he had the dressing room with the character to deal with the expectation.
Pep Guardiola has seen the same happen to him in Manchester.
The hope is that Saka, Martinelli and Odegaard have found their mojo at the perfect time.
Our passing at the weekend, our movement off the ball, our pressing, etc, it was vintage Arsenal. Our starting lineup consisted of 5 offensive players as we rightly took the initiative. Unlike when we faced the Hammers at the Emirates, we were clinical.
Gabriel and Saliba’s body language are of two men obsessed with clean sheets. When was the last time we had centre backs with so much pride in their work?
Then there is the courage we showed.
The score line will disguise the fact that huge strength of mind was on display. This was the venue where our dreams started to die last season.
You wouldn’t have blamed Saka if someone else had took the spot kick, having put his penalty wide in that previous fixture. You couldn’t help but wonder ‘if only’ he could have done that in that 2-2 draw.
The difference this time is we got the decisive third goal while dominating.
We know City and Liverpool have the ability to put winning sequences together. Not just can they handle must-win scenarios every few days they can do it with a smile on their face.
We don’t know if we yet possess that.
In the short term though, I’m glad to say … ‘We’ve got our Arsenal back!’
Dan.
Here is the latest DUBLIN ARSENAL video picking their BEST EVER ARSENAL XI compiled of our Gunners since moving to the Emirates What is yours?
CALLING ALL ARSENAL FANS! Anyone who would like to contribute an Article or Video opinion piece on JustArsenal, please contact us through this link…
Not yet, because we haven’t won EPL, UCL or EL yet
I agree absolutely👌
We are yet to win major trophy. The efforts this term when crowned with a trophy would be massive for the club, players and fans.
The Boys should keep fighting and giving their best till the end and we”ll see what happens season ending.
No until we stop fielding players some players bought with huge sums but who can’t score a goal and journalists keep suspiciously being apologetic for them.
Some journalists have taken upon themselves to defend him after every game. Fortunately we are winning.
Keep the formation that beat Westham and Liverpool. I like the way Trossard and Havertz swap positions throughout the game. Trossard plays better through the middle and Havertz has more opportunity to score than any other Arsenal player. It is a shame he is not clinical. Hecat least keeps the defence busy and uses his strength to create space for others. Klopp named Havertz twice as Liverpools greatest threat. If he was more clinical he could have scored 5. Maybe it is his first year and that he is a sleeping giant waiting to get going. At least he offers Arsenal a more tactical approach. It just goes to show however that we are crying out for a more clinical tall strong center forward, like Man City’s Haaland. A Ibrahimovic type center forward, powerful and more clinical.
I don’t want to burst your bubble but dishing out a Hammering to a team that barely did more than walk on to the pitch, isn’t cause for jubilation and overconfidence. It was nice to finally see us take more of the chances we created and not just stop trying to score when we think the work is done. 6-0 is always safer than 2-0 as we demonstrated last season and we have the players capable of doing that, so let’s. When we can do this on a more consistent basis then we can start saying we have ‘our’ Arsenal back.
We’ve had our Arsenal back since the beginning of last season in my opinion.
The club has come together both on and off the pitch and, despite some very poor results, have supported each other.
Of course there have been mistakes with regards to the transfer market, but the ONE big deal involving Declan Rice showed me (at least) that the owners were supporting the club at long last.
I go to the Emirates now, expecting to be entertained by the players and enjoy the positive banter with fellow Gooners – we’re in a very good place and have been since all the above came together.
Still room for improvement, but isn’t that always the case?
Competitive football, exciting play, top 4 finishes, I would say we have the Arsenal back we were spoiled with under Wenger.
Arteta, Josh, & Edu have done a great job rebuilding Arsenal, and the players have done well producing on the pitch.
I hope they can take it to the next level and deliver titles. Talent-wise we can match with the big clubs, it’s the mentality aspect that I’m waiting to see.
Recent results are great, but it’s squeaky bum time that counts and delivering under that pressure. I hope we are ready to take that final step.
That’s what I mean by “still room for improvement” Durand – winning trophies!
That was the missing link during AW’s time up and until our 2015 fa cup win and was used to berate him, despite never being out of the top four.
I would hate for this to happen with MA, especially when one considers the situation we find ourselves in today.
It’s quite possible that we could end up trophy less once again and that would be five years of his players and his style of play delivering zilch – except for the much derided top four spot.
I believe we will take the PL down to the wire and we should certainly progress to the last eight in the CL – but will that be enough for those fans who castigated our previous manager?
I’m not sure.
Oh DAN, such a dangerous and ambiguous phrase” “we’ve got our Arsenal back”!
To most of us, we never rost them in the first place so could not “have them back” therefore.
You, being the relentlessly negative article writer you are, could I SUPPOSE personally claim to have them back to YOU.
Though I note with NO SURPRISE AT ALL, that you say “in the short term”!
That is the key difference between a supporter who never lost faith in our club and one , such as you, who only writes positive things very rarely, though even then feeling the need to include that negative caveat “in the short term”.
So many have not a clue how their OWN WORDS betray their personal TRUE FEELINGS!
When we finished outside top 4 I felt we lost our Arsenal
I would suggest it is YOU, but not we who lost”our Arsenal ” after that missing top four.
I wonder if fans of clubs who NEVER make top four also feel they have lost their clubs. I suggest it would never occur to them even think that way!
Yes we have wrestle our Arsenal back, a brand new four year contract for the gaffer could cement it further in our grasp.
When was the last time we had centre backs with so much pride in their work?
The last 2 was Laurent Koscielny the best defender we have had in the Emirates era and Per Mertesacker
to complement him.
We are gettin’ our Arsenal want back since last season. Arsenal just need to win the premier league or champios league this season to send a message to our rivals.
Plainly , you never saw SOL CAMPBELL, WHO PLAYED AT EMIRATES.
The merely decent class Koscielny was not fit to lace the boots of CAMPBELL. Seems likely to me ,reading your obviously young persons post, that til SALIBA arrived you had no idea what a REALtop class CB even looked like. If you had, you could not have made that way incorrect comment about Koscielny, a decent, even good, but never REAL top class player.
Jon fox, are you saying Kolo ,Adams and Per were nowhere near Sol, just asking? Adams would do for me. He had all the ingredients of a winner.
Now here’s a little FACT I stumbled across and it relates to the PL and ou CB’s during that time.
Remembering, of course, that the first purpose of a defender is to stop opponents from scoring, the following shows who has scored the most goals for us.
Koscielny = 22
Gabriel = 14
Vermaelen = 13
Gallas = 12
It’s my OPINION that Gabriel will break the record set by Kos and interesting to note that, along with Sol Campbell, the other three were signed by AW, when we regularly finished in the top four.. that’s a FACT as well.